Edgecrusher
Edgecrusher is the leader of CSI Neo Kaon in the Transformers: Extinction fanon. Origin The warrior known as Edgecrusher began his career long before the start of the Great War, in the city of Tarn. Initially a research scientist, Edgecrusher had studied in the prestigious universities of Nova Cronum, and had made a name for himself as a brilliant figure in the field of weapons development. Working for the Vos-based company Shock-Corp, Edgecrusher was responsible for a number of innovations in their range of small arms and anti-armour technology, but upon the outbreak of the war between Vos and Iacon, lost his position within the company as a result of its closure due to its owner’s business deals with both warring cities. Leaving the war-torn city-state to find new employment elsewhere, Edgecrusher was dismayed to find that the market had effectively closed. Travelling the globe to find a new life, he soon found himself impoverished and world-weary, and was forced to take up a position in the military of Tarn to make ends meet. New Direction Although his military service began with a position in engineering and weapons maintenance, the eventual start of the war between Vos and Tarn led to him being drafted into regular service. He soon began seeing action in the slums of Vos, flushing out resistance fighters holed up in the shelled ruins. His experiences, and the high casualty rate of the war, eventually led to him being promoted to lead one of the main battalions involved in protecting the border. It was in a position of command that Edgecrusher began to excel, realising that the science of battlefield strategy was easier to take up than the chemistry and physics of his prior life. In his new position, he was to find himself facing a potent new threat to Tarn’s war effort – the newly formed Havocon Division, Vos’ ace in the sleeve unit of shock troops. Edgecrusher’s 12th Battalion began engaging in a game of cat and mouse with the Havocons, each unit taking the upper hand one after the other, with heavy losses incurred on both sides. The leader of the opposing Havocons, Misanthropy, was to become a figure of hate and fear in the forces of the 12th, just as Edgecrusher was regarded the same by the Havocon forces. However, neither general was to come face to face with each other for the duration of the war, and with the mutual destruction of both city-states in a co-ordinated nuclear strike, both figures sank into obscurity. Edgecrusher, surveying the ruins that used to be a promising, developing city, felt nothing but disgust at the fate of so many civilians and innocents. Taking leave of his battalion, he left Cybertron entirely, eager to find somewhere without such carnage and slaughter. Quest for Peace To this end, Edgecrusher plied the system in a starship commandeered from the Tarn military fleet, searching the stars for a world of peace. However, such was the brutal history of Cybertron that his arrival in many worlds was greeted with fear and intolerance, as his race was known for its warmongering and greed. Driven forcibly from planet after planet, his optimistic self was gradually worn down, leaving an embittered and hateful misanthrope in his place. Over a period of centuries, his quest for peace became a quest for slaughter, touching down on new planets in order to wreak mayhem and butchery on the populace. His name soon came to precede him, however, and another figure in self-imposed exile from Cybertron began to seek him out – Misanthropy. The Past Re-Emerges The two eventually met millennia after they had both left Cybertron, which by now was in the grip of the Great War. Their meeting was to happen on the jungle death-world of Ultimo Mondo, home to a savage race of cannibalistic troglodytes. In the thick, primordial jungles of the planet’s equator, the two stumbled upon each other whilst waging war on the local populace. Recognising each other without ever having seen the other before, the two squared up to each other, fingers tightening around weaponry, as each began to recognise the hatred boiling within the eyes of the other. Edgecrusher was the first to drop his weapon, then Misanthropy, and the two shook hands in mutual admiration for the other’s ability. Leaving the planet together, they vowed to wage war on the universe, and together they founded the Renegade Decepticon Dissidents, or RDD, a coalition of disaffected soldiers and private armies. A New Home After the RDD was established, Misanthropy left to fulfil his own objectives, vowing to return to fight alongside Edgecrusher on Cybertron. Edgecrusher, however, realised that Cybertron would always be a warzone, and that the RDD needed a base of operations from which it could launch its raids. To this end, Edgecrusher, along with the group of soldiers he had gathered together as his own personal retinue, tried to locate a planet strategically placed from which to attack Cybertron. Alongside another exiled Cybertronian named Naval Strike, they were able to find a world on the edge of the same solar system as their home planet, orbited by a single moon. Seizing the opportunity, the small yet capable force made planet-fall at the southern pole, and within hours was waging a war of conquest with the planet’s population, a highly organised insect race. Edgecrusher’s experience flushing out well-defended positions in the Vos-Tarn War was to prove invaluable in formulating a strategy to combat the hive-based species, and within only a year, the planet was entirely under RDD control, nominally ruled by Edgecrusher, who renamed it Neo Kaon, after the birthplace of the Decepticon movement with whom the RDD had aligned itself. After consolidating their rule and eliminating the very last of the planet’s original inhabitants, Edgecrusher left Neo Kaon under the control of a council of his trusted officials, and returned to Cybertron with his retinue, now known as CSI Neo Kaon after their new home world. Upon his return to Cybertron, he began seeking out former acquaintances from his years spent travelling the planet before the wars, drafting any survivors into the RDD. Those who refused were shown no mercy, but those who accepted his invitation, such as Dynamax and Dreadspawn, would come to find themselves wielding significant influence in the organisation. The swelling ranks of the RDD proved to be a liability, however, as, without any clear hierarchical system, a struggle for leadership was to break out. Upheaval The conflict began on Neo Kaon, where Naval Strike had reacted to the addition of so much ‘new blood’ by challenging the status quo of the clan, questioning just who should rule, as well as a genuine concern for the stability and safety of Neo Kaon, which he felt was no longer secure from the attentions of the Autobot forces on Cybertron due to its increased traffic and notoriety. A power struggle was sparked, and within scant weeks, the RDD was to be divided into warring factions, vying for leadership. The absence of Misanthropy, and Edgecrusher’s disaffected attitude to what he saw as the possible collapse of his clan, tipped the balance in favour of Dynamax, who emerged victorious to lead the RDD, in a position he has occupied ever since. Naval Strike fled, and was not seen in the proximity of Neo Kaon again. From here, the RDD was able to rebuild its strength, and Edgecrusher returned to active duty on Cybertron, taking part in vital battles across the planet’s surface, earning himself a name for his skill and the surgical precision of his unit’s raids and ambushes. Always eschewing the limelight of notoriety in favour of keeping a low profile, his name has since become a byword for stealth, secrecy and covert operations. However, his furtive nature and shadowy operations led to the Decepticon forces as a whole turning sour towards CSI Neo Kaon, forcing the unit to take refuge amongst the ranks of the Predacon faction, joining their old allies Dreadspawn and Misanthropy, creating a secondary division of the RDD operating distinctly from Dynamax’s command, yet for the same eventual goal. The Monster's Legend Edgecrusher’s greatest triumph, however, was to come away from Cybertron, on the distant planet of Yaphet, which he had visited alone in order to research new plasma technologies for development. However, his ship had been followed from Cybertron by Maximal forces under the control of the fascistic officer Ghanence, and within minutes of his arrival he was placed under arrest for war crimes against the Maximal population, and sentenced to summary execution. Thinking quickly, he transformed into his fighter jet alternate mode, and slew two of is captors with fiery gouts of engine exhaust. As the others regained their wits, he took off, only to find that his point of arrival had been a lifeless desert – his landing co-ordinates had been scrambled by the pursuing Maximals in a bid to trap him, and the nearest settlement on the planet was several days away. Faced with no other option, he began waging a one-man war on his trackers, his considerable skill allowing him to pick them off one at a time. Before long, only Edgecrusher and Ghanence survived, with the Maximal officer entirely at the hardened Predacon’s mercy. Rather than kill his foe, Edgecrusher sealed him within the cockpit of the ship he had arrived in, and set its autopilot to return it to Cybertron. Upon Egdecrusher’s eventual return to Cybertron, armed now with a devastating array of plasma weaponry, his reputation as a beast in the night, the stalking terror, had been sown within the Maximal forces, who now regard him with a mix of terror and hatred, a standing in which Edgecrusher basks gloriously. Category:Characters Category:Transformers: Extinction Category:Males Category:Scientists